Suffering
by thin.is.a.skill
Summary: Charlie is abusive towards Bella and her siblings, Rosalie and Jasper. Life continues as normal for the Swan family, and only living in an abusive home can teach one true suffering.
1. Chapter 1

I glanced at Rosalie over the breakfast table; her head was hung down in shame. Her hair formed a blonde curtain over her face, which was bruised and bleeding.

I glanced at jasper only to find him with his ipod headphones in his ears, completely lost in the music. I kicked him to get his attention. He looked up slowly and glared at me, I just nodded in Rosalie's direction. I watched jasper face turn to horror as he took in the cuts and bruises that covered our sister's face.

"Rose, I-" I threw him a look, knowing that when Rosalie was in this type of mood she shouldn't be bothered.

"Don't. Please, don't. Don't look at me like that! Bella, you of all people shouldn't pity me it's so much worse for you."

I flinched, Rosalie was right. She and jasper had both inherited my father's looks, tall, blond hair, blue eyes, and thin figure. My father was quite handsome when he was young, and both Rosalie and jasper were gorgeous. I took after my mother; brown hair, green eyes (A/N: I just couldn't make her eyes brown, and green eyes stick out so much, they're noticeable) I was short, with a heart shaped face, in other words, I looked exactly like my mother did.

My father hated this; every time he saw me he would accuse me of trying to look like my mother just to cause him pain. Sometimes he'd hit me, some times he'd yell and throw a tantrum, sometimes he'd find the closest thing he could and hurt me with it, sometimes- I winced, I would not think about that.

Once, I'd tried to die my hair black and wear brown contacts. My father then said I was trying to take the last thing he had that looked like my mother away from him. That night he broke 3 of my ribs, and I realized, I could never win.

Every time father lost control and hurt me; I'd slip into my room once I could move again. Jasper would be sitting on my bed, he'd hold me, and I'd cry. He just held me until I'd gotten all my tears out, and then he'd say, "You're the belle of the world". I remembered those same words coming from very different lips; my mother would say this, a play on my name.

I was brought out of my thoughts by Rosalie; "you don't think anyone will notice to much, will they?" she asked. I had plenty of practice with covering bruises with makeup, but there was one gash in the middle of her face that couldn't be covered.

"I can cover most of it, but this one-" I paused, pointing to the gash in the center of her forehead. "- this one I can't cover. You'll have to say you walked into a pole or something." the clumsiness of the swan family was famous throughout Forks. We'd all been clumsy in the early years, but later the clumsiness became nothing more than a part of the sharade we kept up. Usually I was the only one who needed excuses as I took most of the blows. Last night was one of the rare times he'd lost control and hit Rosalie.

"Ugh, I guess I'll have to". She sighed, "Bells are you okay? Father was pretty mad last night. Did you get hurt? Did he…"

Now, it was my turn to hang my head in shame: "I've got a few bruises on my stomach and back, but otherwise I'm fine". I down casted the pain I was in, hoping she wouldn't remember her second question.

"Bella" Rosalie said, "did he… well…" she let her voice trail off in a question.

I knew what she meant, did he… violate me? Rape me? "Yeah rose." I said quietly "he did."


	2. Chapter 2

We piled into the truck and drove to school in silence. "Bye" we muttered to each other when we arrived. Jasper ran off, no doubt to find Alice. Rose walked over to the bench where she met Emmet every day, muttering something about him being late again. As soon as I stepped out of the car I was swept into the arms of Edward.

"How was your night?" he asked in his lovely, warm, soft, velvet voice.

"Fine" I lied. It was the same answer I always gave when someone asked "how are you?" "Are you ok?" or "how's your father?" fine. Fine. Fine. It was an autopilot, a safe answer, the biggest lie of any. Fine? We were not fine. We were horrible, depressed, pained. Any adjective was better than fine.

Edward sensed my lie; "hey. Chin up." He gave me a chaste kiss on the lips. Edward put his hand on my waist, I gasped, and he had inadvertently put his hand on one of the gashes left from the previous night.

"Are you okay?" he asked sounding alarmed.

I stared at the floor; "fine." I whispered.

"Are you sure?" he questioned.

"Yes. Just leave it alone." I was angry, why couldn't he just let it be? I didn't want him to know the shame I faced when I went home every night.

"Okay." Edward raised his hands in surrender.

"It's Wednesday, what do we have first?" I asked. Since Edward and I were both straight A students, we took all AP courses. Because there was only 1 AP class per course, and they were each at different times, Edward and I had every class together.

"Biology" Edward replied somewhat coldly. Did I offend him with my earlier anger? I hoped not, if Edward were mad at me my life would be total hell. Edward and I set off to science, hand in hand.

Biology dragged by, I didn't listen, I only wondered about weather or not Edward was mad at me. By the end of class I'd decided to apologize and hope that he'd never been angry in the first place. I promised myself that I'd never take out my anger at Charlie on Edward.

The bell rang and through the sound of chairs being pushed back and papers being gathered I could hear the teacher yelling "don't forget: I want five pages on the reproductive system of a glowworm."

Joy. How was I going to do five pages on the reproductive system of a glowworm? Edward walked up to me, interrupting my sulking.

"Edward?" I asked cautiously.

"Yes Bella?" he turned to look at me intensely, "what's wrong?"

I hesitated; "look, Edward. I'm really sorry about snapping at you earlier. It's just that-"

"Bells, relax." He interrupted, "I'm not mad at you."

"You're not? Really?" I asked, my voice weak with relief.

"No, I'm not. How could I possibly be mad at you when I love you this much?"

I smiled, "I love you too."

"Bells, we're going to be late for calc."

"Right" I sighed, "let's go."


	3. Chapter 3

The rest of the day passed uneventfully, and soon it was time for me to say goodbye to Edward and meet my siblings by our truck. We watched mournfully as the Cullen family pulled away in Edward's shiny Volvo.

Rosalie got in the car first; she sat in the driver's seat. Then jasper climbed into the back, and scooted all the way over. I reached up, to grab the roof of the car for balance and support. As I did, the bottom of my shirt crept up to just above my hip, revealing a gash and several hand shaped bruises from the previous night. "Bella" jasper gasped.

I realized what he'd seen; "jazz, I-"

"No, Bells" he sounded angry; "What ever happened to 'a few bruises'? Bella, he could kill you."

"Jasper, you're making a scene." I hissed. I closed the car door. "I'm fine, alright?"

Jasper's eyes narrowed; "Bella, lift up your shirt." I shook my head. "Bella"

I lifted up my shirt, revealing my stomach and ribs and the gashes and bruises that covered them. Rosalie gasped and began to cry. Shit I thought I didn't realize she was watching. Jasper looked at me in horror I read concern and love in his features. "How did he do this?" jasper asked.

I put my head down, "with—with a—a knife." I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not cry.

"Yeah Bells," jasper whispered harshly. "You're just fine."

I was shocked; jasper had never spoken to me like that before. As I was absorbing this we arrived at home. There was a broken beer bottle on the pathway to the house. Shit, this meant Charlie was drunk again.

"Guys, go in quietly and head straight for your rooms." I said, because ever since mom died, I had become a motherly figure in the eyes of Rosalie and jasper. I knew that they would obey me; I also knew that tonight would not be pleasant for any of us, especially me.

We glumly traveled out of the car, down the pathway, up the stairs, into our house, and bolted to the stairs. Rosalie and jasper made it up in time, but I didn't. I was on the top step while they were at the doors to their rooms.

"Isabella!" Father yelled anger flooding his voice.

Terror seeped through me, "yes father?" I managed to squeak.

"First you come in late from school, and then you stomp in as loudly as you can just to wake me up. You have no respect where it's due."

"Father, I didn't mean to be loud, honest, I didn't!"

"Now you talk back to me?" Charlie voice rose till the end of his sentence. He raised his hand; I flinched, knowing what was coming. He slapped me with such force that I fell back, and down the stairs, hitting every one of my cuts and bruises from the night before and (I'm sure) causing a few new scrapes and bruises.

Then he got a shit-eating grin on his face, it sent shivers down my spine. I knew from prior experience that this meant the pain was about to get much worse. Charlie stepped in front of me, still smiling sickly, my arms were sprawled out in front of me. My right arm was only inches away from his foot. He put his foot on my wrist, firmly enough that I couldn't move my arm away, and letting me know his intentions. I cringed in anticipation; Charlie put his other foot on my forearm and jumped.

A sickening crack filled the room, and I couldn't help it, I screamed in agony. I tried to curl into a ball, putting my knees up to my shoulders, but once father saw what I was trying to do he kicked me in the stomach. Hard. I had eaten a large lunch, knowing I wouldn't be getting any dinner, but it was in vain. Once father kicked me, it forced the food out of my stomach, and I felt the rising feeling in the back of my throat. my stomach emptied it's contents onto to the floor.

"I'm going out to find the peace and quiet that I obviously can't find in my own house. When I come back, this floor had best be clean." Fathers voice was dangerously calm. He walked out the door, and I heard him start the car and drive away.

Rosalie came down immedialatly after she heard the car leave, and saw my agonized form. She said "don't worry, I'll clean this up."

I didn't like her to see me like this, but I had to admit I needed help. My voice came hoarsly; "thanks." I knew we'd never mention this again, Rosalie was to proud a person to dwell on problems. She didn't like to be indebted to anyone, or to feel the responsibility of anyone looking up to her.

Soon, I was able to stand up. I slowly took my journey up the stairs to my room, for the first time, I wasn't sure if jasper would be there to comfort me. Filled with anticipation, I crept down the hallway to my room and slowly opened the door.

Jasper sat on my bed, his eyes filled with concern. "are you okay?" he asked, already knowing what the answer would be.

"no" it was such a relief to fianally say it, I was not okay. "no, no, no." I began to cry.

jasper just held me when the tears stopped, and the sniffles began to slow he held me away from him, assessing the damage. "you're the belle of the world." He said.

He got up to leave and I called out to him; "jasper?"

He turned around, "yeah, Belle?"

"what if he never goes back?" I asked.

"what do you mean?" he asked, sounding puzzled.

"I mean, what if me never goes back to normal, the way he was before mom died, when he wasn't 'father' he was just Daddy?" it was the only reason we didn't tell the police that he hit us. He used to be my daddy, my best friend. I was his favorite daughter, and we were close. He was sweet to all of us, not really the diciplining parent. That was what made me so devastated the first time he hit me, the night after my mother's funeral.

"we're risking everything, for a hope, a dream that one day we'll wake up and he'll be daddy again. Well what if he doesn't?"

"he will, some day, he'll be back." Jasper was always so sure of everything. "he has to." That's when I realized, jasper needed hope as much as I did. I needed to be stronger, for him.


End file.
